I’ll be in Las Vegas next Wed and Thurs for some media and USA Cares events; if anyone will be there and would like an autograph for their copies of “Love Me When I’m Gone” message me on the FB page (https://www.Facebook.com/LoveMeWhenImGoneBook) and we’ll try to arrange it!

“I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.”

– Dudley Field Malone

To start this one off, I have to give a little bit of recommended reading; there will be a few terms used here that may seem interchangeable, but are actually quite different (democrat, liberal, leftism). To get a better understanding of these terms, please read “Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph” by Dennis Prager. In this work he goes on in great detail about the difference between these ideas and ideologies, and why some are necessary for honest and open dialogue in the world, and why some are outright dangerous (and arguably the cause to the fall of every past empire and the current European catastrophe).

Homework? Seriously? The key to every problem is education; only when informed people can have an honest discourse on a problem can it be solved….not just jimmied together with duct tape and 550 chord, but actually solved. It is no accident that the most horrible groups have started their power grabs by killing off the intellectuals in a society (Khamer Rouge, Taliban, Nazi’s, etc), and the dumbing down of America via a constantly eroding education system is the thing that has me the most terrified today.

So, let’s start off with inefficiency: I wish I could find a slick way to chop this down to a four-letter word, but I’m not that good. Inefficiency should be a four-letter word, but it has instead become the hallmark of government, and especially now the United States government. I have owned businesses in the private sector, worked in the public sector, and worked in the private sector, and there is no organization out there which is more inefficient than anything related to our government. If you want a real idea of how government-run healthcare would work, ask anyone who has had to deal with the Veterans Affairs hospitals or administration….you should get a medal for surviving that one.

So why am I bringing this up? Taxes. I could maybe take that down to a four letter word, but it would just be confusing. Let’s look at a few reasons why some people, myself included, are so up in arms about the current fiscal cliff and proposed tax increases:

Firstly, who would you say is better at innovation and efficiency, the government or private sector? Do you think it’s a coincidence that every major conservative candidate who loses to a Leftist is immediately hired on to run a large successful corporation (Mitt Romney, Meg Whitman)? Not at all. These private-sector companies are very smart, and are only going to take on someone who they believe can run their organization efficiently and effectively.

Meg Whitman ran against the current Governor of California, Jerry Brown in the last election. She was a former CEO who shattered the glass ceiling at a Fortune 500 company and took them from inefficiency and hemorrhaging money to a successful organization. Since the election she has been hired on as a C-level officer at another major corporation, and once again under her leadership that company is a hallmark of innovation (I just saw an interview with her and the new direction she is taking that company).

Jerry Brown was a mayor of Oakland in the past, and his claim to fame was turning Oakland from a thriving metropolis to the cesspool that it is today. Based on his ultra-liberal policies and ideologies he is now running the state of California, and doing a pretty good job of fleecing the people and sending corporations and job creators fleeing. His idea that raising taxes without first gaining any level of efficiency in his government has resulted in investors, corporations, high-income earners and job producers fleeing the state.

I’m not going to get into the last presidential election, but I think everyone knows that the outcome was quite similar; Romney was almost immediately brought onto the board at another major corporation, Obama is raising taxes and adamantly defiant to grow an inefficient government rather than fix it. Enough said.

Secondly, I would like to talk a little bit about prosperity and philanthropy. The United States of America is the largest exporter of donations to charities in the history of the world. The Leftist media would have you think otherwise; if you did nothing but listen to or read news from certain outlets, you would think that the US is the land of Scrooge, that the top 1% is nothing but curmudgeons who hide every penny and never give. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Why do you think so many immigrants come to this country every day, many under life-threatening conditions? Is it because this is a horrible country of misers and racists who will bleed them dry and take everything they have? No, they come because this is the land of opportunity.

The left would have you believe that racism is still a major factor in this country, even though we have a black president, slavery and Jim Crow have been abolished for decades (even though it is still rampant in Africa, Asia and the Middle East), women can become CEO’s (see above) and every religion, nationality and group you can think of have their own TV shows, radio shows, reality shows and identity. For more on this, please listen to the Adam Carolla podcast….it’s a topic he speaks to much better than I ever could.

Even though the media would have you believe that America is evil, Americans give more than anyone else in history. The great thing about charities is that there are many organizations that rate them, based on their efficiency, how much of their money goes to the people you are supposedly donating too (I support USA Cares and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation because of their high marks for low administration costs). It is the beauty of the free-market system: you can choose whichever organization you feel gives you the most ROI (return on investment), or bang-for-your-buck.

But what about taxes? We know that the government is wildly inefficient, that greedy and corrupt politicians earmark billions every year in hapless programs that do nothing but benefit a portion of their constituency rather than the country, yet we have no choice but to have our money taken. Worse than that, we know that as the government grows larger, the inefficiency and waste of our money grows with it. If for every $100 that the government takes from you in extra taxes, you translate that into $1 less that you can give to charities that need it and spend it well, does your view on raising taxes change?

Thirdly,I’d like to bring up Job Creators; this was a major hot-button topic and phrase in the last presidential election, but I think they got it wrong (both sides). One of my favorite ideas in economics is the idea that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” This is the idea that even if you’re not paying for something it isn’t free, because of all the work that went into providing that meal to you, missed opportunities with time, money, etc.

Based on that principle, I feel that every US Citizen who pays taxes is essentially a job creator. If you look at it on a very macro level, every dollar that you spend on taxes is a dollar that could have gone into the free-market: buying lunch, buying your kid a new toy, taking a vacation. For every dollar that you spend at Toys R Us, Carnival Cruise Lines or PF Changs, that money goes to paying a waiter, cook, restaurant owner, etc. When taxes are raised, people lose disposable income, spend less money in the market, and we have a horrible sales season, like this Holiday sales season has been. Weird that I could see that one but our current administration couldn’t.

Lastly, to bring it all home, I’d like to talk a little bit about the Liberal Leftist media spin. They would have you believe that all of the things I said above are lies, but most importantly they would have you believe that the people I spoke about here don’t exist.

You see, the Leftist Liberal media are masters of spin; they would have you believe that every person in the 1% making over $1,000,000 a year was born with a silver spoon and doesn’t deserve their money. The “fair share” argument is a picture they’ve successfully painted recently (and Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager have a few rants about as well), but they don’t give you the reality. Sure, there is a small group of people who are born into the lap of luxury and essentially pay their way into the top schools and corporations, but that’s not the majority.

I know quite a few people who would be considered in this part of the population, but none of them were born into it. The people I know mostly started their own businesses from scratch, either in a dorm, garage, or basement. They spent years living on Top Ramen and sacrificed everything to see their vision through to success, and because of their perseverance and sacrifice they triumphed.

They don’t spend their days on the golf course and eating lunch from golden plates like the Left has led you to believe; they mostly work 15-18 hour days, eat lunch at meetings, stay glued to their computer, BlackBerry or iPhone all day, sleep 5-6 hours a night and work their butt off to make their business work. CEO’s are not in the position they are in because they look good and have a great smile; they are there because they worked their butts off their entire lives, got into the right school, studied hard and got good grades, landed a great internship, and then worked their way up the corporate ladder.

Their “fair share” should be a lot less than what the Left deems it to be, as not only have they earned their paycheck and then some, but they’ve created paychecks for many others, and if they are doing a good job are giving many people security and peace of mind that they have a good job.

Another argument is that they just hoard all of the money to themselves and pay their employees as little as possible with little to no benefits. That premise is laughable; this is America, you are not mandated by anyone to stay at any job……if you feel that way about the company you work for and its CEO, leave. Get on Monster or Resume builder right now and find a better company.

So, in closing, I’d just like to say that you should take everything you hear or read with a grain of salt. Educate and inform yourself. Listen to or read from more than one news source, so you get a much better picture of what is going on in the world. You can be stupid, some people are just dealt those cards, but to be ignorant is a sin, and there is no excuse for it.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for some time now, but it took some time to find the right words and put enough time between the Sandy Hook tragedy out of respect. I saw a post on one of my LInkedIn groups today, asking the question: “If the USA is supposed to be the land of the free, why do so many Americans still feel the need for guns?” Here is my answer:

If you believe the USA is still the land of the free, you are strongly misguided. Most of our forefathers have great quotes along the lines of “a true patriots duty is to protect this country from its government.” As a Mason I feel a strong tie to those great men, as many Masons were amongst our forefathers who forged and built this great land from a rough stone into the beautiful statue and work of art is has become, but the days of the USA being run by true patriots, governing this country for only a short time and based on the founding principles is long gone.

When I joined the Army, I swore an oath to uphold the constitution…..not corrupt politicians whos’ only allegiance is to whoever writes the checks for his next campaign. It is our duty as American patriots to maintain our arms to keep our government in check, especially now that the normal checks and balances have failed us.

The Second Amendment guarantees every American citizen the right to bear arms. Depending on who is reading it, that can be interpreted as either every American citizen, or only those in a militia….but what is a militia? Here are some definitions for you:

1. An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.

2. A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.

3. The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service

By those definitions, number 3 can apply to a wide range of American citizens who don’t fall under any organized militia, but rather all of us who are citizens over 18 years old without any significant criminal record which would disbar us from military service (number 2 could arguably be applied to the Reserves and National Guard, and with the government currently working to take private arms away from all soldiers that would be a clear violation as well). I’d say I fall under those terms, but the cowards who perpetrated those crimes do not.

Many people in this country today have taken to blaming the NRA for these horrors which have happened recently, but most of this has missed the point greatly. Firstly, for some odd reason our media and public have adopted the idea that everything is black-and-white, and that you have to be on one side or the other wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, that is being represented as “if you are against these tragedies, you have to be against the NRA and responsible citizens maintaining their right to bear arms.” Not so much.

This country was founded by great people seeking to escape freedom from tyranny. It started as religious persecution with the Church of England, and one of the great cries that started our revolution was “no taxation without representation,” leading to the Boston Tea Party.

There is another revolution brewing in our country, as a very large portion of our populace believes, once again, that we no longer have appropriate representation within our government. Our forefathers were men of the community, who would leave their jobs to govern for a short time, and once their time in office was up would return to their jobs and to being upstanding citizens.

We now have a political class who go to college to be politicians, and who’s only jobs throughout their lives are either aspiring to be or sitting as politicians, and once they leave their post go on to be political consultants and lobbyists; it’s no longer a job for patriots, but one based solely on greed and power. We are no longer governed by like-minded Americans, but largely by a political class who only pretends to be “in touch” with America while they are campaigning for their next election.

My strong belief and support of the right to bear arms, as many of my friends, brothers, and tax-paying, law-abiding American citizens, is not so that people can go on rampages and kill innocents…it is the right of American patriots to keep their land protected against any threats, both foreign and domestic. It is a belief among many that the last line of defense against a government hostile towards it’s own people is in groups of citizens who are willing to take up arms in her defense, and if that is taken away we lose that ability.

In short, the Second Amendment was built upon the framework of what forged this great land; American patriots having their arms to defend the United States of America against ANY threat, foreign or domestic. These tragedies are the most heinous of crimes, and I strongly support finding a way to prevent them, but I do not believe that taking the right to bear arms away from patriots and citizens is the right answer.

Both of these cowards (Aurora and Sandy Hook) had clear mental illnesses, and should not, in any way, be compared to the law-abiding and upstanding patriots who bear arms for protection rather than harm. If we take those arms away from those who would defend us when the time comes, the only people left with guns would be those who are the most dangerous with them.

Holiday priced at $5.99 to make a great gift for any military enthusiast in your life!

If you’re one of those who has already read, please review on Amazon and Smashwords; these days people are smart enough to follow real reviews over advertising, so a review from a person who’s read the book will go a long way! There are a lot of companies out there now who will write reviews for money, but I feel that’s a bit unscrupulous and don’t want to tarnish this story with that.

Thanks to all of my friends and family for being so supportive through this whole process….if it hadn’t been for you this would never have been written or finished!